# Chapter 50
“How long were you planning to hide this without telling me?”
“…I wasn’t trying to hide it…”
“Yeah, right.”
One corner of Rite’s mouth turned up, but the rest of his facial muscles remained rigidly stiff. His contorted face seemed both angry and mocking.
“Do you think I just found out now?”
“…What… what do you mean?”
“I’m not a child who doesn’t understand things. I have enough sense to see who dislikes Arden, who likes Arden, who looks down on Arden—I can see it all.”
“…Since when?”
“Does that matter?”
I couldn’t say anything. Should I make excuses? Should I apologize? Sorry that the person who raised you was a traitor? Sorry that I hid that fact until now?
Then I heard a small sigh from above my head.
“Would you explain it to me now? Do I have to ask for this?”
“…What…”
“Why are you asking when you already know?”
“…”
“It’s unfair. Arden knows everything about me, but I know nothing about Arden.”
Rite’s voice remained relatively calm. Compared to my voice that was jumping and trembling all over the place.
“There’s nothing… good about telling you. It’s something… that shouldn’t… be spoken about…”
Even that was difficult to say. Mentioning that incident was uncomfortable. As I shook my head and stumbled through my words, Rite cut me off.
“Not even to me?”
“There are no exceptions.”
“I’ve always been Arden’s exception.”
Despite his resolute tone, anxiety showed in his eyes. It was painfully clear that he was waiting for me to agree.
“…It was a long time ago.”
So I couldn’t bring myself to say no. I indirectly expressed that I couldn’t remember.
It had been over 10 years already. Even mentioning this incident was a serious crime. A project that the Emperor carried out secretly, without letting anyone know. I became involved three years after the project started.
“How long ago?”
“10 years… no, 11 years ago.”
“Is that why you came to the Winter Forest?”
Rite coaxed me with a gentle voice. I wanted to cling to that kind voice. I believed that my foolish behavior was entirely due to my fever.
“Yes… originally, I was supposed to be executed.”
My previously blocked mouth began to gradually reveal the past. It was a musty story that I had buried and never told anyone for over 10 years.
“But I survived because I’m an engineer. Because I was an engineer… engineers were too valuable to waste… so I was allowed to live on the condition that I spend the rest of my life here. In case I might be useful again someday.”
It was now a past that didn’t affect me anymore. That’s what I thought. There was nothing left to tie me to the past. I often felt like I was floating in an empty, unknown space with nothing.
I could feel Rite’s gaze looking down at me as I trembled silently. That gaze felt like a silent urging, so I opened my mouth again.
“The Emperor said he wanted to become a god.”
“A god?”
“A being with great power who doesn’t die.”
When I first heard it, I didn’t believe it. Such a thing couldn’t be possible. But after witnessing that scene, I had no choice but to believe. Too many people were sacrificed for one person’s absurd greed. The Emperor wanted to become such a being, even if it meant making all those sacrifices.
“So many people were tortured in pain. Putting machine-made organs into human bodies is dangerous… they couldn’t put them into the Emperor’s body right away…”
Even to myself, I seemed to be rambling incoherently, but Rite just listened quietly. Cold streams of water continued to fall. My whole body felt like it was freezing. In contrast, my head was hot and dizzy.
“I, I… checked on those people. How long they lasted, at what point they fainted, and also… when they died.”
After joining the project, I don’t remember properly handling machines. Despite having the honor of being an imperial engineer, many engineers disappeared overnight. New engineers brought in to fill those vacancies weren’t given many responsibilities at first. As if trying to erase their morality and test their loyalty. Cleaning the laboratory, managing equipment, and checking the condition of test subjects. The work wasn’t physically demanding, but it was a succession of mentally tormenting tasks.
Along with the existing internal political struggles, another friction continued. Constantly clashing with other engineers about right and wrong, fighting, opposing. Even the knights joined in to continue the verbal battles…
“Every day, I had to watch people crying, begging me to save them.”
This was something I had never told Plin. I was afraid of what Plin would think if he knew what I was doing. It was something that shouldn’t be spoken of, but I also lacked the courage to speak of it.
“I spent three months like that.”
I thoroughly ignored and dismissed their words. Because I knew that if I engaged in conversation even once, I would crumble.
“And then?”
“I released them. The survivors who remained.”
It started when I finally answered those who begged me, looking into my eyes. My prediction was accurate, and I released the surviving test subjects. Even those who seemed unlikely to survive, if they had the will to leave, I set them free. The will to leave—that was the biggest issue. Some people, despite being relatively physically intact, chose to stay in the laboratory, saying they didn’t want to leave.
Rite was silent. But I didn’t have the audacity to raise my head, face him, and demand an answer. My breathing became rapid. Each breath I exhaled was filled with heat.
“That’s all.”
Even knowing it wasn’t an insignificant matter, that’s how I put it. I had never felt wronged about my crimes. I just accepted it, and ultimately, I was indeed a traitor. Anyway, after Plin died, there was no one left to feel ashamed in front of. But now, things were different.
“It doesn’t really matter to me. If Arden discarded it, I don’t care either.”
“…”
“But if Arden wasn’t the one who discarded, but was discarded instead, that’s a different story.”
“…What’s different?”
What’s different? Without raising my head, I just stared at Rite’s feet. A pair of winter boots standing firmly on the ground that had become slushy from melting snow.
“They just used you and then discarded you. Like those people.”
Rite’s finger pointed behind me. It was in the direction of the village.
No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t me who was discarded. I had survived, one way or another. I survived because I was an engineer and could continue to earn money as an engineer. Even under the name of a traitor.
“I’m just one of the engineers who turned a blind eye.”
I had to make that clear. I was an ambiguous being, neither one thing nor the other. If I had intended to be loyal to the country as an engineer, I should have pretended not to know until the end, and if I had intended to maintain my humanity and morality, I should have taken a more active stance from the beginning.
In the end, what remained was a human whose morality and humanity had crumbled. Neither an engineer dedicated to the country nor the morally upright Arden. Just a human who was nothing.
“That doesn’t matter to me. Whether Arden is truly a traitor or not, even if you killed people, it’s all the same to me.”
“I really did kill… people died. Because I marked them as fine, and then the next day, they died while having machines implanted in their bodies.”
“That wasn’t Arden’s fault.”
“Yes, it was!”
I shouted as if believing the rain would swallow all sounds. The rainwater beat coldly against my body. Every time the cold wind touched my wet clothes, the trembling that started at my fingertips spread throughout my body. I couldn’t tell if my body was shaking because I was cold or because I was agitated. My teeth chattered and my whole body trembled.
“In the end, it was Arden who released those people.”
“…I don’t know what happened to those people after they were released. They might have been recaptured, or even if they escaped, with those bodies…”
“That’s not Arden’s domain.”
“…”
“Among all those garbage bastards who deserve worse than death, Arden was the only one who was human.”
No. That’s not it. I kept shaking my head. Now I couldn’t even understand my own feelings. I had hoped Rite wouldn’t be disappointed in me, but it was also difficult to hear Rite deny my sins.
“Everyone pointed fingers at me. For betraying the country, tarnishing honor, committing treason, yet shamefully surviving because I was an engineer…”
“Arden.”
Rite called me quietly. A cold hand gripped my shoulder. His thumb slowly rubbed around my shoulder blade. With that small touch, my head, which had felt like it was about to burst, calmed down a little.
“Look. Again, it’s just you and me left.”
“…”
“So why do you keep looking for other people besides me?”
Though the tone was quiet and monotonous, I could feel the affection embedded in those words. Rite wasn’t disappointed in me. Rite continued to like me. He won’t leave me even knowing my sins. There was one sentence that these facts proved.
Rite’s feelings for me were bigger and heavier than I thought. Even if that affection was twisted and inappropriate.
Rather than feeling burdened by this fact that weighed down on me, I found comfort in it. Just like how I can easily fall asleep only when there’s a weight pressing down on me when sleeping. I was more accustomed to this weight than I had thought.
“This kind of relationship isn’t normal.”
“So what? I’m a monster anyway.”
Rite’s right hand left my shoulder and touched my chin. My gaze, which had been fixed on the ground for a long time, was forcibly raised. Rite’s face that I now faced was like a clean blank slate, without any revealed emotions.
“Those people who pointed fingers at you, should I eat them all?”
Hm? Should I, Arden? Adding these words, a playful smile spread across his previously clean face. But I couldn’t smile. I could see at a glance that Rite wasn’t just joking. Even though he was clearly smiling.
‘I’m a monster too, anyway.’
Rite, who instantly grows horns and sharp claws, and a traitor who might be dragged back to the castle and executed at any time.
How many would we have to eat to be peaceful forever, just the two of us?
“If only you had remained an eleven-year-old child, we could have been together forever.”
At my words, Rite’s smile disappeared. It was instantaneous, like a thin cloth being pulled away.
“I don’t want that.”
“…”
“I’ve finally caught up a little. It feels like I just need to go a little further.”
Why? At Rite’s question, I felt a vague feeling. An anxiety rose that this kind of opposition might last a lifetime.
